Come out here and look!

I first read this poem on Malcolm Guite’s blog – he included it in his anthology Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, into which I dipped recently. It makes me think of my late husband, because we enjoyed, as most married couples must, that sweet and simple privilege of having someone at hand to whom we could say things like, “Honey, come out here and look at the moon!”

Tonight I was driving home from a meeting — the skies were clear midnight blue for the first time in ten days, just in time for me to get a view as long as my journey, of the “silvercoin full” moon hanging there. I wished that I could turn on my jets and angle straight up to talk to the Man who was smiling at me. I remembered the poem, and without thinking whether it made any sense, I said, “Mr. Glad, will you look at this moon!”

You might want to read on the poet’s own website, Grevel Lindop, from which he also links to Malcolm Guite’s presentation. Both of them feature evocative images to accompany the poem.

THE MOONS

Too many moons to fill an almanac:
the half, the quarters, and the slices between
black new and silvercoin full –
pearl tossed and netted in webs of cloud,
thread of light with the dull disc in its loop,
gold shaving afloat on the horizon of harvest –
How many times did you call me from the house,
or from my desk to the window, just to see?
Should I string them all on a necklace for you?
Impossible, though you gave them all to me.
Still some of their light reflects from memory.
Here it is, distant gleam on the page of a book.

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11 thoughts on “Come out here and look!”

I have one friend who also understands the impulse. Each of us has been known to pull over on the street, or leave dinner on the stove, while we call the other and say, “You ought to go look at that moon!”

It was that kind of night for me also – missing “The Man I Loved.” It was a “Wolf Moon,” which is the first full moon of the year. It was also the first night of a live stream of an owl my husband and I watched on the computer the last winter before he died. Mr. Tiger had lost Mrs. Tiger this past summer. She was killed by being shot. So we are rejoicing that “The Mr.” has found a lovely new Great Horned Owl and she has laid two eggs so far in a home-schooled young girl’s window box in Edmond, OK! Her name is Allessondra. God is Good.

I was out for a walk in the late afternoon and on the way home, through town, I looked up and saw a huge owl mural I’d never seen before! Then, arriving at the riverside, I was stopped in my tracks and gasped … then giggled and clapped at the appearance of the Moon – here a golden disk risen over the hill. It was also a clear night here for moonrise but arriving home she was beginning to pull up the clouds around her – cold, it was! Raced upstairs and hunted for the Song to the Moon from Dvorak’s opera, ‘Rusalka’, and put that on to listen and hum to, in celebration. Gorgeous night, in sight and sound!

We here have been there, My Dear and I. The poem brings many nights back, some evenings too, other dawns. Also birds at the feeder. Sudden new blossoms. We are still there at times, blessedly still here.

(Not sure that I get the last line. Maybe that’s OK. The other preceding eleven are enough. And the first six–wonderful! )